7 Effective Steps For Writing Art Blog Posts That Generate Traffic

Are you having a difficult time writing blog posts for your art blog? 

If you are, you are not alone. Many artists find it challenging to write content that will produce traffic and promote their online art business. 

This post will discover 7 effective steps for writing art blog posts that generate traffic.

Why do you have to spend so much time learning to generate traffic to your art blog?

We think about how we can drive more traffic to our art blog because the more people who visit our sites, the more people will see our artwork.

Developing different ways to have more people see your artwork is art marketing 101. 

It doesn’t matter if you want to sell your art part-time or have a career selling your creations. Becoming an art marketing expert is a goal to accomplish.

By the end of this post, you will know…

• Make a list of blogging topics that you would like to write about.
• Write a simple title and critical points that you would like to write about.
• Write a rough draft.
• Quick edit.
• Write an into
• Write an ending
• Edit

7 Effective Steps For Writing Art Blog Posts That Generate Traffic

Writing is a challenge for many people, especially artists.

We, as artists, communicate to the world with visual artwork, not words.

Do you struggle with writing?

I have always struggled with writing and grammar.

I would have rather visited a dentist than write a blog post when I started blogging. It was painful.

It would take me four hours to write a 500-word post that nobody would understand.

Why did I torture myself blogging?

Digital marketing has changed very quickly over the past few years.

When I started selling my artwork online, all I had to do was write a keyword-rich art description for my art listings, and people would find my site.

As time went by, more and more artists were starting to sell art online, and search engines like Google were changing their algorithms, which allowed them to suggest the best content to its audience.

Fine art blogs were becoming more popular, and I noticed my competition passing me by as if I was stuck in quicksand.

I knew that I had to change what I was doing if I wanted to continue selling my artwork online.

I started to research what was working for digital marketing, and all I heard about was blogging.

At that point, I was not familiar with blogging. I thought it was just an online diary. I had no idea that businesses were using blogging (content marketing) to build an online presence.

I stumbled across this video that inspired me to learn everything about blogging.

My passion and goals were to continue to make a living selling my art online, so I had no choice but to learn how to write.

I spent many hours researching how to build a successful art blog and learn how to write more effectively.

I would not be here today selling my art online if I didn’t focus on developing a content marketing plan.

Related Resources:

• How to Write a Blog Post That Drives Traffic with Darren Murph
• Content Marketing for Photographers with Jared Bauman
• Build a Successful Creative Blog with April Bowles-Olin

How To Write A Blog Post That Drives Traffic

In this post, I want to share some tips that I have learned along the way to make writing less painful so you can start to build your art business faster.

Below are some strategies I use today which allow me to write quicker and more effectively.

Find The Best Time To Write 

Everyone has different priorities and commitments to contend with.

You will have to find when the best time for you to write is.

For example, if you have young children, you might find the best time for writing after your children leave for school, or you might find that you will be more productive after your children go to bed.

If you have a full-time career, you might find it best to write before work or maybe during your lunch break.

Try to find the time when you are more focused and when there will be fewer distractions.

Once you have a time that works best for you, write it down on your calendar.

Your daily schedule might change throughout the year, which is perfectly normal.

Just be willing to adjust your schedule accordingly.

For example, you might find it easier to write when your children are in school in the morning. When your children are home during the summer, you might find it easier to write in the evening.

When you write does not matter. What matters is how often you publish your posts.

For example, you will see better results if you publish one post a week throughout the year versus publishing 30 posts during the school year and not publishing an article during the summer.

A helpful tip is to schedule posts ahead of time. This is helpful when you are on vacation or find it challenging to write for a week or two.

Related Post: How to Schedule Posts in WordPress.

Planning will help you grow your business faster than you could have ever imagined.

Related Resource: Get More Done in Less Time The Part-time Artist eBook

Art Blog Topics

If I had a nickel for every time an artist has asked me what they should write about, I would be living on a paradise island enjoying a margarita.

What type of artwork or crafts you will be selling will determine what you will be writing about.

Here are some general topics you might be writing about:

• Artwork for sale
• Abstract art for sale
• Art prints for sale
• Canvas art for sale
• Framed art
• Graphite art
• Oil paintings
• Watercolor

You will want to focus on creating content that relates to your artistic style and the artwork you will be selling, but what else can you write about that will help you separate yourself from all of the other artists selling similar art?

A great tip is to define your niche.

What is a niche?

Niche Definition: A portion of a market that you’ve identified as having some special characteristic, and that’s worth marketing to. (Source: Entrepreneur)

• Who is your target audience?
• What interests does your target audience have?

Understanding who your target audience is will help you to determine what niche you will be focusing on.

For example, if you are an artist who specializes in painting horses with acrylics, your niche will be “acrylic horse paintings.” Discovering what your niche is will help you to develop art marketing strategies that target people who are interested in purchasing your artwork.

Related Posts: 

• Niche Marketing Strategy for Artists
• Niche Marketing Online Video Tutorial
• How to Find Your Target Audience And Sell More Art

Now that you have a clear vision of your niche, you will want to come up with a list of topics you would like to cover.

How do you come up with an endless amount of topics you can write about that will attract your target audience to your site?

A strategy I like to you is called mind mapping.

Mind mapping is:

“A graphical technique for visualizing connections between several ideas or pieces of information. Each idea or fact is written down and then linked by lines or curves to its major or minor (or following or previous) idea or fact, thus creating a web of relationships. Developed by the UK researcher Tony Buzan in his 1972 book ‘Use Your Head,’ mind mapping is used in note taking, brainstorming, problem-solving, and project planning. Like other mapping techniques, its purpose is to focus attention and to capture and frame knowledge to facilitate sharing of ideas and concepts.” (Source: BusinessDictionary)

Let me walk you through how I might go about doing this.

Let’s say your niche is acrylic horse paintings.

In the middle of a piece of paper, you will write “acrylic horse painting.”

Next, you will want to create categories that branch off of acrylic horse paintings.

The categories will be the main topics you will be writing for your art blog.

For this example, some of your categories might be:

• How To Paint Horses
• How To Sell Your Horse Paintings
• Horse Breeds
• Acrylic Paint Supply Reviews
• How to Care For Your Artwork
• How To Display Your Artwork

The next step is to take each category and develop more specific topics that relate to the category.

For example, here is what you might want to write about for the category “How To Care For Your Artwork.”

• How To Properly Clean Your Horse Painting
• How To Wrap A Horse Painting For A Gift
• How To Protect Your Horse Painting From Sunlight
• Can You Use Varnish On An Acrylic Horse Painting
• How To Remove Dust and Pollen From An Acrylic Horse Painting

You can see that there are many topics you will be able to write about that will provide a solution to your target audience’s problems.

Keep in mind that people read posts to find a solution to a problem they might have.

The more solutions you can provide to your topic, the better. This strategy will soon have you seen as an authority in your niche.

You will want to continue to do this for all of the categories you will be writing about for your art blog.

When you are done with this, you will have many art topics to write about.

Related Post: 110 Art Blogging Ideas

Writing A Rough Draft

AT this point, you have defined your niche, and you have also made a list of categories and topics you will be writing about.

The next step is to develop a schedule for all of the topics you write about. This is also known as a content calendar or an editorial calendar.

Related Post: How To Create a Blog Editorial Calendar 

When it is time to sit down and write a post, you will want to write a generic title and some key points that you would like to discuss in your post.

A rough draft is not meant to be perfect. There will be time to edit your work later. This is the time to develop an outline for your post, so it will be easier for you to stay focused on the covering topic.

After you have your bullet points written, it is time to add content that will be valuable to your readers.

Start with the first key point and write detailed information that will support that particular point you are trying to make.

When you finish with that point, move on to the next and repeat.

Repeat this process until you have finished writing about every key point you had listed.

Quick Edit

Now that you finished writing about the key points that you wanted to do a quick edit. The quick edit is for you to read quickly through your content, make sure that it makes sense, flows, and fixes any mistakes.

This is an excellent time to rearrange your sentences to make them flow better. You want to make the content easy for your readers to digest.

Do not spend too much time on this task. It is a quick edit. You will do a final edit later.

Introduction

After you have completed your quick edit, you will want to spend some quality time on your post’s intro.

The introduction of a blog post is as critical as the title. These few sentences have to grab the reader’s attention. If you lose their interest here, they will quickly jump ship.

The introduction should explain to the reader what the rest of the content will be about. Give the reader a summary of what will be ahead.

I like to ask, then provide a solution to the problem in the introduction.

For example

Here is the introduction to this post.

Are you having a difficult time writing blog posts for your art blog? If you are, you are not alone. Many artists find it very difficult to write content that will promote their business. In this article I will share with you steps for writing blog posts that will make this job easier for you.

You can see that it starts with the question of a problem. Then it explains how the post will solve the problem.

With this introduction, the reader will know what to expect. If they have difficulty writing blog posts, they will find a solution in this article.

Ending

At this point, you have a beginning and a middle. Now you will need to wrap it up.

The ending is where you will provide a summary or conclusion of your content with a call to action. The summary or conclusion should refresh what the reader has just read. The call to action explains what you would like your readers to do next.

Many art bloggers miss this vital part of the post.

You want to guide your reader to purchase a product, join your email list, read other content, engage with the post, share the post, or whatever your mission is for your blog.

The reader will not do what you would like them to do if you do not make it easy.

A call to action could look like:

• Join my free newsletter so you do not miss any upcoming events.
• If you enjoyed this article, share it with your Facebook friends.
• Visit my art gallery to see all of my artwork.
• Would you like to learn more about purchasing my artwork?

Final Edit

The final edit is when you will proofread your work. See if there is anything that you can get rid of. If it does not fit the post, remove it. File it away in case you can use it in a different post.

Work on your title. Make sure that it complements your post.

Check the flow of the article. Sometimes moving a word or a sentence will make your words flow better.

Check for any simple spelling or punctuation errors that need to be addressed.

Have someone else proofread the article.

Now your post is ready to be published.

Final Thoughts About Writing Art Blog Posts That Generate Traffic

Writing blog posts can be more enjoyable if you have a system. Fine-tune these steps so they will work correctly for you.

Steps For Writing Blog Posts that everyone will enjoy.

• Make a list of blogging topics that you would like to write about.
• Write a simple title and key points you would like to write about.
• Write a rough draft.
• Quick edit.
• Write an into
• Write an ending
• Edit

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